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[Solved]Intel Premiere/PCI II BABY-AT (Plato) - full BIOS dump

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First post, by regis440

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Hi,

I resurected this motherboard https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/intel- … i-baby-at-plato. One of problems was that bios flash memory completly gone. Binaries which are provided on retroweb do not contains 8KB of bootstrap code (OEM code). In documetation there is information that it is use for "recovery", but it is not true. Part of it is also used for boot system from disk. On old versions I'm able to boot this board, but later it hang on booting system from floopy. On latest versions it just report with phoenix POST code EA which is "Read in bootstrap code" or "Initialize OEM special code" . Probably it mean the same.

I would be greatfull if somebady could do full dump of 128K of this bios.

Last edited by regis440 on 2023-05-11, 19:35. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 6, by regis440

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I do not why I assumed that it is phoenix bios. It is AMI and on this list https://archive.org/details/AMIBIOS8Ch ... 5/mode/1up it indicate problems with recovery procedure. Looks like newer versions have additional recovery path in case of bios corruption. I need check this motherboard more, maybe fdd controller is not working.

Still if anyone have dump of this bios I would be grateful.

Reply 2 of 6, by PC Hoarder Patrol

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regis440 wrote on 2023-04-26, 06:21:

I do not why I assumed that it is phoenix bios. It is AMI and on this list https://archive.org/details/AMIBIOS8Ch ... 5/mode/1up it indicate problems with recovery procedure. Looks like newer versions have additional recovery path in case of bios corruption. I need check this motherboard more, maybe fdd controller is not working.

Still if anyone have dump of this bios I would be grateful.

Maybe check out the Plato BIOS / boot block recovery files here http://files.mpoli.fi/unpacked/hardware/rom/i … el/platord.exe/

Reply 3 of 6, by regis440

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Thank you! I will check it as it looks like these bioses are different from retro web. Still these are missing recovery boot block.
In meantime with some trouble I managed to dump old bios and I have working recovery boot block, but rest of it seems to be invalid.
Now I thinking that maybe this motherboard is indeed Gateway 2000 version and regular bioses from ref Intel board just not work. I will try later these bioses with T at the end of POST string. When I will manage to run it I will share full dump.

Reply 4 of 6, by regis440

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Thank you very much for help. Thanks to your link and this thread HELP! - Dead Intel VS440FX motherboard with BIOS EEPROM overheating - SOLVED I managed to flash bios.
Intel bios archives are not raw images. To properly flash you need run dedicated Intel software. I had to use original flash module as motherboard know how to flash exactly this part. Good thing was that recovery mode bios part was working, so I was able to finish procedure. Later I will post full dump of bios with all parts, so if somebody will have dead flash module he will be able to write on compatibile part with external programmer.

Reply 6 of 6, by regis440

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Additional helpful info can be that I'm using as repleacment 29f010 instead 28f001bx flash. It is working fine apart from that you can not program it in motherboard.

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